Audrey Ryback" />
  • ABOUT
  • PRINT
  • PRAISE
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • OPENINGS
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • CONTACT
The Missing Slate - For the discerning reader
  • HOME
  • Magazine
  • In This Issue
  • Literature
    • Billy Luck
      Billy Luck
    • To the Depths
      To the Depths
    • Dearly Departed
      Dearly Departed
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
  • Arts AND Culture
    • Tramontane
      Tramontane
    • Blade Runner 2049
      Blade Runner 2049
    • Loving Vincent
      Loving Vincent
    • The Critics
      • FILM
      • BOOKS
      • TELEVISION
    • SPOTLIGHT
    • SPECIAL FEATURES
  • ESSAYS
    • A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
      A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
    • Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
      Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
    • Nature and Self
      Nature and Self
    • ARTICLES
    • COMMENTARY
    • Narrative Nonfiction
  • CONTESTS
    • Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
    • PUSHCART 2013
    • PUSHCART 2014
Alone in Babel, Arts & CultureOctober 7, 2015

Submission

SoumissionReviewed by Audrey Ryback

—Michel Houellbecq, ‘Soumission’  (Submission) (Flammarion, 2015)

 

Two days after the Charlie Hebdo shooting at the beginning of this year, I was walking around one of the biggest malls in Paris trying to find a copy of the latest book by the author who was featured on Charlie Hebdo’s front page the day of the attack. Paris felt eerie. Heavily armed military police were patrolling public places, train stations, shopping malls, major boulevards; a warning was sent out to stay away from busy metro stations and nobody quite knew how to deal with all of the news items coming in. Twelve dead, eleven injured at Charlie Hebdo. The following day a gunman shot a police officer and took hostages at a kosher supermarket near Porte de Vincennes. The book I had been looking for, Michel Houellebecq’s ‘Submission’ , had sparked plenty of attention prior to its release. Debates on Islamophobia in France had been ongoing in the media. Wherever I looked, ‘Submission’ was completely sold out. Last month, the English translation was published, proudly proclaiming its status as an “international best seller”.

‘Submission’ takes place in Houellebecq’s version of a futuristic France. The year is 2022 and, in response to the unpopular socialist rule of François Hollande, France has polarized into radicalism: a far-right pro-European and anti-immigration movement, the “identitarians”, rapidly gain popularity among young French intellectuals. Their only serious rivals for political power are the “Muslim Fraternity”, led by the youthful, charismatic and competent “Ben Abbes”. Abbes wins the election and begins to reform of France into a society governed by the rules of the Qu’ran. Women gradually disappear from public institutions and are relegated to their households;  skirts and neck-lines seem to cover incrementally more and more skin.

The scene Houellebecq sets at the beginning is extremely rich, but his characters remain flat throughout the book. The result is a slow, shallow and pretty Islamophobic novel.
So far, this sounds like material for a very provocative but potentially interesting novel. The story follows the protagonist, François, a professor of French literature at one of Paris’ biggest Universities, and his struggle with his “submission” to Islam. François is an all-round despicable character: cynical, unhappy, leading an unremittingly passive, uneventful life. Every September he finds a new undergraduate student to sleep with for a few months: at one point he observes that women become flabby and unattractive after the age of 25. Liberation’s reviewer describes François as “dull”, and while Liberation sees it as a stylistic feat to convey François’ archetypical 21st century urban indifference to the reader, I find myself disagreeing. François does not really do much or think much or even say very much of any value. He vaguely observes the changes around him. While this premise (a shallow, indifferent character confronted with radical and imposing political changes) could lend itself to an interesting novel, the execution of it fails. The scene Houellebecq sets at the beginning is extremely rich, but his characters remain flat throughout the book. The result is a slow, shallow and pretty Islamophobic novel.

Houellebecq’s previous work suggests that he is an intelligent, if not very likeable, author. His style is crisp, bold, and economical with a touch of cynicism, all features I enjoy. Some of his previous novels are highly acclaimed: ‘The Map and the Territory’ won him the renowned Prix Goncourt, while ‘Atomised’ received the International IMPAC Award. ‘Submission’ however seems to have been written out of a similar motivation as ‘He’s Back’, by Timur Vermes, the German bestseller of 2012 about the return of Hitler as a TV talk show host. Both books push just the buttons to provoke the public, addressing the biggest taboos in their respective societies. There is merit in that mentality, I believe. It is important to be able to debate sensitive issues in public debate. But ‘Submission’ presents the reader with an overly simplistic version of Islam: in Houellebecq’s vision of the future, the two main changes to French society are the acceptance of polygamy and the expectation that women must cover up. If you are going to provoke, do your research and provoke intelligently.

‘Submission’ was a financial success, selling 155,000 copies within the first five days of being published. With the date of its release coinciding with the Charlie Hebdo attack, the novel that fed a fear that was spreading through France at the time. Since its publication, Houellebecq has been under 24-hour surveillance by bodyguards. He can’t leave his house alone for fear of an assault.

The book will not have a long shelf-life: it is anchored too firmly in the current politics of France. So much of the context given is specific to France’s political scene, with some fairly obscure references to political figures. This novel will be a shooting-star bestseller, off the shelves and forgotten again by the end of the year. Nonetheless, there are some humorous passages, especially when Houellebecq takes on the French University system, its outdated hierarchies and the academic self-indulgence of petty literary professors. In the end ‘Submission’ made me mostly angry. But it also made me think. I really wanted to argue with Houellebecq, so much so that I had to scribble little notes in the margins to formulate my dissent. So if this type of book appeals, read it with a strong sense of irony and healthy dose of criticism: you might enjoy the provocation. But maybe get it from the library. Or borrow it from a friend. It’s seriously not worth the $13.75.

Tags

Audrey Rybackbook reviewsMichel Houellebecq

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articleUnexpectedly: Translating Manuel Bandeira’s ‘Profundamente’ as a Group
Next articleI Will Grow, I Will Bear Fruit

You may also like

Pacific Islander Climate Change Poetry

Spotlight Artist: Scheherezade Junejo

Nobody Killed Her

Ad

In the Magazine

A Word from the Editor

Don’t cry like a girl. Be a (wo)man.

Why holding up the women in our lives can help build a nation, in place of tearing it down.

Literature

This House is an African House

"This house is an African house./ This your body is an African woman’s body..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

Shoots

"Sapling legs bend smoothly, power foot in place,/ her back, parallel to solid ground,/ makes her torso a table of support..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

A Dry Season Doctor in West Africa

"She presses her toes together. I will never marry, she says. Jamais dans cette vie! Where can I find a man like you?" By...

In the Issue

Property of a Sorceress

"She died under mango trees, under kola nut/ and avocado trees, her nose pressed to their roots,/ her hands buried in dead leaves, her...

Literature

What Took Us to War

"What took us to war has again begun,/ and what took us to war/ has opened its wide mouth/ again to confuse us." By...

Literature

Sometimes, I Close My Eyes

"sometimes, this is the way of the world,/ the simple, ordinary world, where things are/ sometimes too ordinary to matter. Sometimes,/ I close my...

Literature

Quarter to War

"The footfalls fading from the streets/ The trees departing from the avenues/ The sweat evaporating from the skin..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Literature

Transgendered

"Lagos is a chronicle of liquid geographies/ Swimming on every tongue..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Fiction

Sketches of my Mother

"The mother of my memories was elegant. She would not step out of the house without her trademark red lipstick and perfect hair. She...

Fiction

The Way of Meat

"Every day—any day—any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be... We’d part like hair, pushing into the...

Fiction

Between Two Worlds

"Ursula spotted the three black students immediately. Everyone did. They could not be missed because they kept to themselves and apart from the rest...."...

Essays

Talking Gender

"In fact it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women...

Essays

Unmasking Female Circumcision

"Though the origins of the practice are unknown, many medical historians believe that FGM dates back to at least 2,000 years." Gimel Samera looks...

Essays

Not Just A Phase

"...in the workplace, a person can practically be forced out of their job by discrimination, taking numerous days off for fear of their physical...

Essays

The Birth of Bigotry

"The psychology of prejudice demands that we are each our own moral police". Maria Amir on the roots of bigotry and intolerance.

Fiction

The Score

"The person on the floor was unmistakeably dead. It looked like a woman; she couldn’t be sure yet..." By Hawa Jande Golakai.

More Stories

Muhammad

“…but that is a poem I cannot write./ that is a cartoon we cannot draw.” Poem of the Week (January 27), by Amna Y. Khan.

Back to top
One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

Read previous post:
Working Hands / Zawal-e-Istihal

"...They have served well. / Even though knuckles are pummeled, nails ridged/ like limpet shells. These hands have never/ been...

Close